The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [13]
The squires came forward at Gerard’s hand signal, gathering around him as he got down from the table.
“We need to organize,” Patrick said, his eyes darting back and forth, his pale skin slick with sweat. “Burn a signal fire, ask for help.”
“From who?” Finan asked, practical in the face of Patrick’s obvious terror. “Like the mouse saying to the cat, ‘Oh come help me, my tail’s stuck!’”
“You think sitting around waiting is any better?” Patrick was the largest of the squires, muscled from years of weapons practice, and Gerard was more than a little afraid of him. Not that the other boy would ever hurt anyone…but sometimes he just didn’t know when too much was too much, even in mock fighting.
Mak moved to get between the two of them, his own voice raised, and two of the servants who were still hanging back watching started to whisper to each other.
“Enough!” His voice cracked on the last syllable, but Gerard kept talking. “We can’t stand around here saying what if and maybe. Mak, we need to have someone on the wall, keeping watch. You know the pages.” Mak’s younger brother was among them. “Find some of the older ones who can be trusted and set them there with the order to sound an alarm if they see anything—anything at all.”
Mak nodded, reaching out to snag a black-haired page who had been lurking behind him. “Go find my brother. Tell him to meet me at the front gate with five of his best.” The page, clearly terrified but used to being given run-and-fetch orders, nodded once and darted away.
“Who put you in charge?” the stable boy asked, standing among the squires as though he had the right to that company.
Gerard looked the other boy up and down and shrugged. It was a move he had seen the king use several times when humoring someone who had no right to ask questions but would be answered anyway. “I am the oldest squire awake. I have the most training. And”—he never played this trump, not out loud, but to this insolent servant he would—“I am the nephew of King Arthur himself, and so the closest to royal blood in Camelot.”
He had no real claim to royal blood. Arthur was Sir Kay’s foster brother; they had been raised together, but there were no blood ties between them. Sir Kay was Gerard’s mother’s brother, so he was really related to Kay, but not to Arthur. But hadn’t Arthur welcomed him as family when he came to court? Didn’t he call him nephew? It should count. It had to count.
The stable boy looked at him grudgingly, then nodded. Gerard’s opinion of him went up…slightly. Sir Rheynold said that a man who could take correction well and without argument was a man worth having by your side. Even if he was a servant.
“So what are the rest of us to do?” Finan asked.
Gerard didn’t know. Taking care of the watch had been the first thing he thought of, the first thing his training led him to cover, but after that…his mind went blank.
“We need to get these youngsters settled down,” Newt said. “And…it’s a little disrespectful, don’t you think, to have your uncle slumped down in his food?” That was directed at Gerard, who blushed a little in anger that he hadn’t thought of that as well.
“Combine the two,” Robert said. “I’ll make it into a game for them.” He nodded once to Gerard, gave a shorter acknowledgment to Newt, and turned to gather up some of the more alert-looking children. Within minutes, they were swarming all over the hall, lifting adult heads off the tables, wiping faces, cleaning up spills, and setting the sleepers upright in their chairs like so many life-sized dolls.
Patrick scowled at the activity. “We need help,” he said again.
“We need Merlin,” Ailis said, then stared back at the boys when they swung on her as though the cat had spoken. “What? It’s an enchantment, isn’t it? And he’s an enchanter, isn’t he? Moreover, he’s the king